94 On the VicissiUides of Bird- Keeping.,


semblance to the hybrids which I bred some years previously

between the Sharp-tailed finch and Bengalee.


On the 26th I discovered a young Tambourine Dove, pro-

bably about fourteen days of age, below the old nest, dead ; so

that my doves must have nested a second time in September.


Oct. 30. My last Diamond-finch died, a cock bird in most

interesting plumage, some of the central breast- feathers tipped

with crimson ; this clearly proves, as I stated in my article on

Hybrid Ploceidcz, that the ancestral form of the species must have

had red on the breast, and also indicates relationship to Emblema

fticta.


My young hybrid Ouzels were now in adult colour, ap-

parently two cocks and one hen, although one of the cocks has

not yet acquired the orange-yellow bill excepting along the

margins of the tomium. The hen is much paler than last year's

bird and nearly resembles the ordinary female of Menda boulboul

with a large reddish-brown patch on the wing partly bordered by

ashy-whitish streaks: the male birds are smoky-black with a

red-brown wing-patch answering to the whitish-bordered grey

patch of M. boulboul ; their feet are dark like those of M. merula.

It therefore seems probable that the grey patch in M. boulboul

was evolved through the red-brown patch still retained by its

female.


On Nov. 27th Iyieut. Horsbrugh sent me two cock Red-

headed finches and two hen Serins, apparently the St. Helena

and Sulphur Seed-eaters.


My Crested Mynah, which was an old bird when I bought

it in 1896, after suffering for about two months from a violent

cough, which neither prevented it from bathing daily, nor affected

its spirits, died suddenly on the 28th.


On Dec. 1st Miss Gladstone sent me her Haugnest, a

beautiful sulphur yellow variety of what appears to be Icterus

vulgaris : there is a somewhat similar specimen among the skins

in the Natural History Museum.


As I complete these notes my Tambourine Doves and

young, Gouldian finches with this year's young, a pair of Ringed

finches, a pair of Yellow-rumped finches and a pair of Chinese

•Quails are still in their outdoor aviary, and all in splendid health,



